UCSD's six colleges are: Roger Revelle College, founded in 1964 as First College, which has highly structured requirements; John Muir College, founded in 1967 as Second College, which emphasizes a "spirit of self-sufficiency and individual choice" and offers loosely structured general-education requirements; Thurgood Marshall College, founded in 1970 as Third College, which emphasizes "scholarship, social responsibility and the belief that a liberal arts education must include an understanding of [one's] role in society"; Earl Warren College, founded in 1974 as Fourth College, which requires students to pursue a major of their choice while also requiring two "programs of concentration" in disciplines unrelated to each other and to their major; Eleanor Roosevelt College, founded in 1988 as Fifth College, which focuses its core education program on a cross-cultural interdisciplinary approach to both Western and non-Western cultures; and Sixth College, founded in 2002 with a focus on "historical and philosophical connections among culture, art and technology."

Undergraduates can major in any discipline offered at UCSD without regard to their undergraduate college. However, the colleges issue undergraduate diplomas and hold individual commencement ceremonies.

Student life

The campus' undergraduate population is represented by a formal student government, known as the A.S. Council. Recently, the council made national news over controversy over pornography broadcasted over the A.S.-funded television station.

Another major student-run institution is the UCSD Guardian, the campus' twice-weekly student newspaper.

Charter School

Admissions

For the 2006-2007 academic period, UCSD received 43,579 freshmen applications of which 21,305 students were offered admission, making the admission rate about 49%. [1] A small number of these offers even required students to enter in winter quarter. The group of admitted students attained a mean weighted high school GPA of 4.03 and an average SAT Reasoning score of 627, 664 and 636, respectively, for Critical Reading, Math and Writing.[2]

UCSD is the only NCAA Division II school that does not offer athletic scholarships. In 2005, the NCAA created a rule that made it mandatory for Division II programs to award athletic grants; a measure has been proposed to begin offering small grants to all intercollegiate athletes in order to meet this requirement.

In addition to UCSD's NCAA teams, the school fields a number of club sports teams. The UCSD surfing team has won the national title six times. The UCSD kendo team won the national title in 2005 and many UCSD kendo team graduates compete for the USA Kendo Team.[3]

Recognition

In the 2006 Newsweek Magazine review, "America's 25 Hottest Colleges," UCSD was selected as the "Hottest for Science," noting the school's location, research grants, tradition, and diverse topics of study as key points [4]. For 2006 US News and World Report ranks UCSD as 32nd in the nation overall and seventh among public universities for its undergraduate program. Compared to other public universities in California, UCSD is ranked third behind Berkeley and UCLA. The 2005 Academic Ranking of World Universities released by Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranked UCSD 11th in the United States and 13th in the world. In the same year The Times Higher Education Supplement ranked UCSD as 42nd in the world overall (a significant drop from its 24th ranking in 2004), 14th in the world for biomedicine, and 48th in the world for science [5]. Also in 2005, the Atlantic Monthly ranked UCSD as eighth in the United States. Kiplinger's ranked UCSD 11th in the nation for “First-Class Education at Bargain Prices." The London Times ranks UCSD 24th among the world's top 200 universities [6].

For 2007 US News and World Report ranked the graduate School of Medicine as 14th in nation for medical research and 33rd for primary care (a significant drop from its #7 ranking in 2005). UCSD's graduate program in behavioral neuroscience was ranked second in the nation while its cognitive pyschology program was ranked third. Moreover, the Jacobs School of Engineering overall was ranked 11th in the nation tied with Cornell. Its biomedical engineering program specifically was ranked second in the nation behind Johns Hopkins. [7]

UCSD has total annual research funding of more than $600 million. The National Science Foundation has ranked UCSD first in the UC system and sixth in the nation in terms of Federal research expenditures. Some 200 San Diego companies have been founded by UCSD faculty and alumni, and over 40% of the people employed in the San Diego biotechnology industry work in UCSD spin-offs. Science Watch ranked UCSD eighth in the world for highest research impact, based on papers published and cited in the field of molecular biology and genetics.

In 1995, the National Research Council ranked UCSD faculty the 10th-best in the nation, and ranked numerous graduate programs among the top ten in the United States in terms of quality: neurosciences (1st), oceanography (1st), bioengineering (2nd), physiology (2nd), pharmacology (3rd), theatre and dance (3rd), genetics (6th), geosciences (6th), cell and developmental biology (7th), anthropology (9th), biochemistry and molecular biology (2nd), political science (2nd), aerospace engineering (10th), and mechanical engineering (10th). UCSD also counts among its research centers the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the San Diego Supercomputer Center.

Public art

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Numerous public art projects, part of the Stuart Collection, decorate the campus. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Sun God, a large winged creature located near the Faculty Club. Other Stuart Collection art includes a collection of Stonehenge-like stone blocks, a large coiling snake path, a building that flashes the names of vices and virtues in bright neon lights, and three metallic Eucalyptus trees, each with their own personalities.